October opens the Icelandic swell season. The depressions re-form over the North Atlantic and run across the island until March. The Reykjanes peninsula faces south, west and north-west, so there is nearly always a break pointing the right way: the difficulty is never finding swell, it is finding somewhere the wind is not tearing it apart.
What separates October from the rest of the season is that you still have time to look. There are twelve hours of daylight at the start of the month and nine at the end, enough to check Sandvík in the morning, drive to Grindavík if the wind swings and finish at Þorlákshöfn. The water is at 9°C, three degrees warmer than in February, and the peninsula roads have not started taking snow. In November you get the same swell with three hours less light; in March, the same light with colder water.
